Some bands tend to shy away from comparisons to their influences. However, Chicago’s noise-rock heroes FACS only see it as a point of flattery. In fact, their Instagram bio makes light of it as they proudly display these two descriptors: “Almost Fugazi for goths” and “Dub Like Jehu.” If you were to describe the wildly inventive three-piece a concise elevator pitch to someone unfamiliar with their music, you could do a lot worse.
This Friday, the band will be releasing their fourth album Present Tense via Trouble In Mind. The new album follows expands on the band’s 2020 release Void Moments as their groove conscious and ferocious rhythm section — which consists of bassist Alianna Kalaba and drummer Noah Leger — mixes like a devious concoction with singer and guitarist Brian Case’s angular guitar screeches and agitated vocals.
Recorded last November at the famed Steve Albini-helmed hometown studio Electrical Audio and mixed by friend and longtime collaborator John Congleton, the air-tight interplay between the group was distilled through practices and writing sessions that seemed to have much more urgency than in the past. With a worldwide pandemic raging, there was no room for the small-talk and bull-shitting that tends to derail productivity. FACS were on a mission to keep things moving even though the rest of the world had stopped.
“We didn’t really have anything to do and no shows to prepare for,” Case told me over a Zoom call, “We were like, ‘let’s just make a new record!’ We were definitely not going to be able to do anything this year. So we thought, ‘let’s just have something ready for next year and hopefully we can do something’.”
With a mission in hand, the band piled into their practice room, fully-masked and as determined as ever to create something that would represent the world in disarray around them. What they emerged with is their finest collection of songs to date. A record of its time, Present Tense personifies an erratic heartbeat and captures the band reaching an unflinching apex of their powers. With all members being seasoned veterans in the indie rock world — Case and Leger played together in Disappears and Kalaba currently plays drums in Cat Power — FACS are a band that has created an album devoid of any ego that could weaken their attack. Each instrument is showcased perfectly and works perfectly in tandem with one another. Once the needle hits the groove on side A, they have you by the neck and there is no letting go.
Case credits the tightly-coiled drive to the album to the shared feeling of uncertainty the band had been experiencing all year. “That anxiety just sort of filtered into the music and it just gave it some of that intensity,” he explained, adding, “We always try to make the music physical and this time it really translated because I think we were all really on the same page. You didn’t know what was going to happen the next day. Every day, something crazy was happening as it got closer in November with Trump. That was the idea behind the name [of the album] Present Tense. You couldn’t relax.”
To premiere the record, FACS recently released a beautifully shot full run-through of the album live from Metro’s Top Note Theatre in Chicago. Inter-spliced with grainy split screen footage of the band ripping through the material onstage, the band taped the performance last February catching them at a phase when they were living and breathing this new material. It was an intensity that a band would normally bring to the road.
Currently, FACS only has a couple of dates booked in Chicago this Summer. As Case sees it, the band would sooner record another new record before risking their well-being or having to cancel or reschedule a tour, like they had to with a European tour they booked last year. For a band that works as hard as FACS, It wouldn’t be a shocking move. “We already started writing some stuff,” Case assured. “I think we can make that happen.”
In many ways, FACS are one of the few bands that are making game changing records while still having ties to the Chicago noise-rock and post-rock scene that some of the most exciting bands from the UK are citing as influences. When I asked Case if he ever thought one of the biggest rock bands in England would have molded their sound around The Jesus Lizard he smiled and showed his gratitude for having been a part of a scene and sound that is a unique export of this city.
“It’s cool. I have a 15 year old son and their band is totally super enamored by Touch & Go and SST. I love seeing that circle come around,” said Case, who moved to Chicago in 1995. “That’s why I moved here. I still live here. I love seeing these younger bands who are influenced by the same things that influenced me or how that influence has changed after 20 years.”
Check out the full album premiere of Present Tense by FACS out May 21st via Trouble in Mind Records.